Rickover: The Struggle for Excellence

Admiral Hyman G. Rickover (1900-1986), the "Father of the Nuclear Navy," was born Chaim Godalia Rickover in eastern Poland to Jewish parents. Fleeing Russian antisemitic pogroms in 1906 with his mother and sister, he joined his father, who had traveled to America since 1897, in New York City. The family soon moved to Chicago where Rickover's father worked as a tailor. Congressman Adolph Sabath, a Czech Jewish immigrant, nominated Rickover for appointment to the US Naval Academy. Rickover pa...